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- 9180
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 9124
- text
- upon my admiration. They were perfectly tame and insensible to fear.
Frequently, after seating myself upon the ground in some shady place
during the heat of the day, I would be completely overrun with them.
If I brushed one off my arm, it would leap perhaps into my hair: when I
tried to frighten it away by gently pinching its leg, it would turn for
protection to the very hand that attacked it.
The birds are also remarkably tame. If you happened to see one perched
upon a branch within reach of your arm, and advanced towards it, it did
not fly away immediately, but waited quietly looking at you, until you
could almost touch it, and then took wing slowly, less alarmed at your
presence, it would seem, than desirous of removing itself from your
path. Had salt been less scarce in the valley than it was, this was the
very place to have gone birding with it. I remember that once, on an
uninhabited island of the Gallipagos, a bird alighted on my outstretched
arm, while its mate chirped from an adjoining tree. Its tameness, far
from shocking me, as a similar occurrence did Selkirk, imparted to
me the most exquisite thrill of delight I ever experienced, and with
somewhat of the same pleasure did I afterwards behold the birds and
lizards of the valley show their confidence in the kindliness of man.
Among the numerous afflictions which the Europeans have entailed upon
some of the natives of the South Seas, is the accidental introduction
among them of that enemy of all repose and ruffler of even tempers--the
Mosquito. At the Sandwich Islands and at two or three of the Society
group, there are now thriving colonies of these insects, who promise ere
long to supplant altogether the aboriginal sand-flies. They sting, buzz,
and torment, from one end of the year to the other, and by incessantly
exasperating the natives materially obstruct the benevolent labours of
the missionaries.
From this grievous visitation, however the Typees are as yet wholly
exempt; but its place is unfortunately in some degree supplied by the
occasional presence of a minute species of fly, which, without stinging,
is nevertheless productive of no little annoyance. The tameness of the
birds and lizards is as nothing when compared to the fearless confidence
of this insect. He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to
roost there if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your
hair, or along the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is
resolved to explore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so
inconsiderate as to yawn while a number of them were hovering around
me. I never repeated the act. Some half-dozen darted into the open
apartment, and began walking about its ceiling; the sensation was
dreadful. I involuntarily closed my mouth, and the poor creatures being
enveloped in inner darkness, must in their consternation have stumbled
over my palate, and been precipitated into the gulf beneath. At any
rate, though I afterwards charitably held my mouth open for at least
five minutes, with a view of affording egress to the stragglers, none of
them ever availed themselves of the opportunity.
There are no wild animals of any kind on the island unless it be decided
that the natives themselves are such. The mountains and the interior
present to the eye nothing but silent solitudes, unbroken by the roar
of beasts of prey, and enlivened by few tokens even of minute animated
existence. There are no venomous reptiles, and no snakes of any
description to be found in any of the valleys.
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